On the Periphery: Examining Women’s Exclusion from Core Leadership Roles in the “Extremely Gendered” Organization of Men’s Club Football in England

This paper frames men’s club football as an “extremely gendered” organization to explain the underrepresentation of women leaders within the industry. By analyzing women’s leadership work over a 30-year period, we find that women’s inclusion has been confined to a limited number of occupational areas. These areas are removed, in terms of influence and proximity, from the male players and the playing of football. These findings reveal a gendered substructure within club football that maintains masculine dominance in core football facing leadership roles and relegates women to a position of peripheral inclusion in leadership roles. Through a discourse analysis of gender pay gap reports, we show that men’s football clubs legitimatize women’s peripheral inclusion by naturalizing male-dominance at the organizational core. These findings are significant as they demonstrate that men’s football clubs, as masculine conferring organizations, have excluded women from core roles in order to maintain their masculine character while superficially accepting women into roles that do not challenge the association of football with hegemonic masculinity. As such, organizational change may only be possible if women are granted greater access to core organizational roles. This paper offers a new theoretical framework for “extremely gendered” organizations that can be applied to other sporting and male-dominated contexts to analyze women’s access to core leadership roles

The impact of aminated surface ligands and silica shells on the stability, uptake, and toxicity of engineered silver nanoparticles

Inherent nanomaterial characteristics, composition, surface chemistry, and primary particle size, are known to impact particle stability, uptake, and toxicity. Nanocomposites challenge our ability to predict nanoparticle reactivity in biological systems if they are composed of materials with contrasting relative toxicities. We hypothesized that toxicity would be dominated by the nanoparticle surface (shell vs core), and that modulating the surface ligands would have a direct impact on uptake. We exposed developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) to a series of ~70 nm amine-terminated silver nanoparticles with silica shells (AgSi NPs) to investigate the relative influence of surface amination, composition, and size on toxicity. Like-sized aminated AgSi and Si NPs were more toxic than paired hydroxyl-terminated nanoparticles; however, both AgSi NPs were more toxic than the Si NPs, indicating a significant contribution of the silver core to the toxicity. Incremental increases in surface amination did not linearly increase uptake and toxicity, but did have a marked impact on dispersion stability. Mass-based exposure metrics initially supported the hypothesis that smaller nanoparticles (20 nm) would be more toxic than larger particles (70 nm). However, surface area-based metrics revealed that toxicity was independent of size. Our studies suggest that nanoparticle surfaces play a critical role in the uptake and toxicity of AgSi NPs, while the impact of size may be a function of the exposure metric used. Overall, uptake and toxicity can be dramatically altered by small changes in surface functionalization or exposure media. Only after understanding the magnitude of these changes, can we begin to understand the biologically available dose following nanoparticle exposure.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the author(s) and published by Springer. The published article can be found at: http://link.springer.com/journal/11051.Keywords: Dispersion, Zebrafish, Nanomaterials, Environmental and health effects, Surface chemistry, Silica shel

Circulating HPV DNA as a Biomarker for Pre-Invasive and Early Invasive Cervical Cancer: A Feasibility Study

BACKGROUND: High-risk HPV infection is responsible for >99% of cervix cancers (CC). In persistent infections that lead to cancer, the tumour breaches the basement membrane, releasing HPV-DNA into the bloodstream (cHPV-DNA). A next-generation sequencing assay (NGS) for detection of plasma HPV circulating DNA (cHPV-DNA) has demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity in patients with locally advanced cervix cancers. We hypothesised that cHPV-DNA is detectable in early invasive cervical cancers but not in pre-invasive lesions (CIN). METHODS: Blood samples were collected from patients with CIN (n = 52) and FIGO stage 1A-1B CC (n = 12) prior to treatment and at follow-up. DNA extraction from plasma, followed by NGS, was used for the detection of cHPV-DNA. RESULTS: None of the patients with pre-invasive lesions were positive for CHPV-DNA. In invasive tumours, plasma from one patient (10%) reached the threshold of positivity for cHPV-DNA in plasma. CONCLUSION: Low detection of cHPV-DNA in early CC may be explained by small tumour size, poorer access to lymphatics and circulation, and therefore little shedding of cHPV-DNA in plasma at detectable levels. The detection rate of cHPV-DNA in patients with early invasive cervix cancer using even the most sensitive of currently available technologies lacks adequate sensitivity for clinical utility

Survey of Pest Management Practices on US Golf Courses

Integrated pest management (IPM) is an important component of golf course maintenance and includes conventional chemical pesticide use as well as nonchemical cultural management practices. Determining how frequent pest management practices are used on golf courses is critical when developing educational and outreach programs. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of pest management practices and pesticide mixing and storage facilities on US golf courses. A survey was sent to 14,033 operational US golf facilities with 10% responding. Reliance on all conventional chemical pesticides increased from 2015 to 2021. The reliance on biological control products declined to 14% and reliance on the nonpesticide practice of using plant growth regulators remained equivalent to 2015. The most common pest management practices included monitoring weather patterns and scouting for pests, with 93% of golf facilities reporting the use of both. The use of written IPM and pesticide application plans increased from 44% to 63% of golf facilities between 2015 and 2021, respectively. Generally, mixing and storage facilities remained unchanged from 2015 to 2021. US golf facilities continue to use nonchemical pest management practices, but reliance on chemical pesticides has increased

Nutrient Use and Management Practices on United States Golf Courses

Nutrient use on United States golf courses increases management costs and has the potential to influence ecosystems. Therefore, it is critical to assess nutrient use and management practices to develop and teach best management practices. The objectives of this survey were to measure nutrient use and management practices on United States golf courses in 2021, and to determine if changes occurred since 2006. A survey was developed and distributed via e-mail to 14,033 United States golf facilities, with 1444 responding. From 2006 to 2021, the total projected nitrogen (N), available phosphorus (P2O5), and soluble potash (K2O) applied declined by 41%, 59%, and 54%, to 54,376, 13,761, and 41,386 tons, respectively. These reductions were attributed to course closures, reduced fertilized acres, reduced application rates, and nutrient use restrictions. The percentage of facilities that did not apply P2O5 increased to 21%, which is likely a result of P2O5 application restrictions. Soil testing was associated with greater application rates of N, P2O5, and K2O. Returning clippings, using precision fertilizer applications, reducing turfgrass acreage, and considering N release from soil organic matter were associated with reduced application rates of P2O5. Golf course superintendents have contributed to nationwide reductions in N, P2O5, and K2O, as evidenced by the reduction in fertilized acres and the reduction in nutrient use rates from 2006 to 2021

Smaller classes promote equitable student participation in STEM

Under embargo until: 2020-07-24As science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms in higher education transition from lecturing to active learning, the frequency of student interactions in class increases. Previous research documents a gender bias in participation, with women participating less than would be expected on the basis of their numeric proportions. In the present study, we asked which attributes of the learning environment contribute to decreased female participation: the abundance of in-class interactions, the diversity of interactions, the proportion of women in class, the instructor's gender, the class size, and whether the course targeted lower division (first and second year) or upper division (third or fourth year) students. We calculated likelihood ratios of female participation from over 5300 student–instructor interactions observed across multiple institutions. We falsified several alternative hypotheses and demonstrate that increasing class size has the largest negative effect. We also found that when the instructors used a diverse range of teaching strategies, the women were more likely to participate after small-group discussions.acceptedVersio

DNA Methylation Profiles of Ovarian Clear Cell Carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) is a rare ovarian cancer histotype that tends to be resistant to standard platinum-based chemotherapeutics. We sought to better understand the role of DNA methylation in clinical and biological subclassification of OCCC. METHODS: We interrogated genome-wide methylation using DNA from fresh frozen tumors from 271 cases, applied non-smooth non-negative matrix factorization (nsNMF) clustering, and evaluated clinical associations and biological pathways. RESULTS: Two approximately equally sized clusters that associated with several clinical features were identified. Compared to Cluster 2 (N=137), Cluster 1 cases (N=134) presented at a more advanced stage, were less likely to be of Asian ancestry, and tended to have poorer outcomes including macroscopic residual disease following primary debulking surgery (p-values <0.10). Subset analyses of targeted tumor sequencing and immunohistochemical data revealed that Cluster 1 tumors showed TP53 mutation and abnormal p53 expression, and Cluster 2 tumors showed aneuploidy and ARID1A/PIK3CA mutation (p-values <0.05). Cluster-defining CpGs included 1,388 CpGs residing within 200 bp of the transcription start sites of 977 genes; 38% of these genes (N=369 genes) were differentially expressed across cluster in transcriptomic subset analysis (p-values <10(−4)). Differentially expressed genes were enriched for six immune-related pathways, including interferon alpha and gamma responses (p-values < 10(−6)). CONCLUSIONS: DNA methylation clusters in OCCC correlate with disease features and gene expression patterns among immune pathways. IMPACT: This work serves as a foundation for integrative analyses that better understand the complex biology of OCCC in an effort to improve potential for development of targeted therapeutics

A Broadly Applicable Strategy for Entry into Homogeneous Nickel(0) Catalysts from Air-Stable Nickel(II) Complexes

A series of air-stable nickel complexes of the form L[subscript 2]Ni(aryl) X (L = monodentate phosphine, X = Cl, Br) and LNi(aryl)X (L = bis-phosphine) have been synthesized and are presented as a library of precatalysts suitable for a wide variety of nickel-catalyzed transformations. These complexes are easily synthesized from low-cost NiCl[subscript 2]·6H[subscript 2]O or NiBr[subscript 2]·3H[subscript 2]O and the desired ligand followed by addition of 1 equiv of Grignard reagent. A selection of these complexes were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and an analysis of their structural features is provided. A case study of their use as precatalysts for the nickel-catalyzed carbonyl-ene reaction is presented, showing superior reactivity in comparison to reactions using Ni(cod)[subscript 2]. Furthermore, as the precatalysts are all stable to air, no glovebox or inert-atmosphere techniques are required to make use of these complexes for nickel-catalyzed reactions.National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (GM63755)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowshi

Operationalizing marketable blue carbon

The global carbon sequestration and avoided emissions potentially achieved via blue carbon is high (∼3% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions); however, it is limited by multidisciplinary and interacting uncertainties spanning the social, governance, financial, and technological dimensions. We compiled a transdisciplinary team of experts to elucidate these challenges and identify a way forward. Key actions to enhance blue carbon as a natural climate solution include improving policy and legal arrangements to ensure equitable sharing of benefits; improving stewardship by incorporating indigenous knowledge and values; clarifying property rights; improving financial approaches and accounting tools to incorporate co-benefits; developing technological solutions for measuring blue carbon sequestration at low cost; and resolving knowledge gaps regarding blue carbon cycles. Implementing these actions and operationalizing blue carbon will achieve measurable changes to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, provide multiple co-benefits, and address national obligations associated with international agreements